The cloud. It's where our music, bookmarks, passwords, and even our backups increasingly can be found. A decade ago, online storage was paltry—10 megabytes, or maybe 20 if the service provider was feeling generous. Now, it's measured in gigabytes.

The cloud's increased capacity is a good thing, as the files many of us are passing around have grown in size as well. In addition to the increasing generosity of personal backup and data hosting services, there's also been a growth in the number of free file-sharing services to help move those multi-gigabyte files around. We've got a couple of favorite services that we like to use:

Box offers 5GB of free space for anyone who signs up. It also integrates with other cloud services, such as Google Apps, if your needs fall in that direction

We also like Dropbox. It comes with just 2GB of space, but the native Windows, Mac, and Linux clients integrate nicely into each platform, making it a snap to use.

While these two are our personal favorites, we wanted to tap and share the wisdom of our readers. What's your favorite free file-sharing service? Name it and defend it, and we'll list some of the best suggestions below.

UnlimitedExpressionist: I'm very hesitant posting this website because once it's publicized the speeds will probably drop quite a bit but I am a huge fan of Filedropper.com

themantis: Windows. Live. Mesh. Most underrated Microsoft product, and probably the most reliable synchronization service available for PCs. Works on Macs, too.

clamknuckle: I like minus. They give you 10 gigs for free, and an extra gig for everyone you refer, up to 50 gigs They have Android and iOS apps as well.

Asperin: Its funny nobody mentioned A Drive. They offer the maximum storage space for free to my knowledge, a whooping 50GB.

When it's actually for transferring: Wetransfer, max 2GB per transfer and you can send files endlessly. Has been a great tool for sending (photographic) projects around the block. Me and my friends also use Dropbox as some form of Music sharing service, we simply dump the album in our shared folder and everyone gets it. Been introduced to some great tunes that way, and in Holland it's fully legal too (or at least to my understanding).

Homemade file-server running Debian Squeeze listening on a non-standard SSH port (running Samba for my Windows machine), a DynamicDNS updater running on the router, and a CNAME in DNS to make my somewhat difficult to remember DynamicDNS URL easier to remember (home.myname.com rather than somereallylongphrasesinceeverybodyhastakenthegoodstrings.dyndns.org). From my phone and tablet I can get in through either mapping the SSH share as a drive or through a VPN. Small things (photos, documents, etc) are versioned through SVN and friends and family can be granted read-only rights through a web interface to view and download as they need it.

The server has 16TB of storage and costs $6 per month in electricity (assuming the kill-a-watt dealy is accurate). Once Rasberry Pi becomes widely available I may switch my setup, but it performs extraordinarily well and provides me the ability to run applications off of my server via X-Forwarding (Virtual Machine Manager, MySQL Admin, etc.).

Pretty much SugarSync. I originally went with Dropbox until that whole password mess. I then tried Wuala, Spideroak, Oxygencloud, Ubuntu One, before settling on SugarSync.

What password mess?

I'm currently using Dropbox because of the cross-platform support.

I'm also using CloudApp mostly for screenshot sharing. I believe it's only available on the Mac, but being able to Cmd-Shit-4, have it uploaded automatically, and have the URL to the shot be placed on my clipboard automatically, makes it pretty awesome. Whenever I need to share a screenshot, it's done through CloudApp.

Most underrated Microsoft product, and probably the most reliable synchronization service available for PCs. Works on Macs, too.

One glaring problem with Live Mesh is that you currently can't drop files into a web browser. You have to use the OS integration to upload. But the OS integration is so seamless and so reliable, I can't imagine life without this product.

Skydrive, every day. The fact that I'm always on a Windows PC, then I can mesh into my home PC from work, and it integrates pretty well. The new online interface is rad too, so is the fact that you can download whole folders as a .zip.

25 GB's, granted, I'm not a huge fan of the max file size (50mb, I think?), but that is supposed to change soon.

Add in the fact that you can edit any office documents in the office online version, and it makes a pretty compelling offer.

I prefer Dropbox over Box.net, reason being dropbox is just way more simpler to use. Especially with its native client and unlimited file size upload. Box is much more feature rich but for a regular nonbusiness user these are just too many options that are really confusing. I wish dropbox will improve its web portal and add the ability to simple 'Watch' folders and sync them. Box should split its services in two, one with business oriented and one consumer oriented for simplification.

Skydrive, every day. The fact that I'm always on a Windows PC, then I can mesh into my home PC from work, and it integrates pretty well. The new online interface is rad too, so is the fact that you can download whole folders as a .zip.

25 GB's, granted, I'm not a huge fan of the max file size (50mb, I think?), but that is supposed to change soon.

Add in the fact that you can edit any office documents in the office online version, and it makes a pretty compelling offer.

- This. Along with Windows Live Mesh. I think the max upload file size was increased to 100 mb. One day Mesh and Skydrive will be integrated, too!

I like minus. They give you 10 gigs for free, and an extra gig for everyone you refer, up to 50 gigs They have Android and iOS apps as well. If you sign up under me, you will get 11 gigs free, and I'll get an extra gig.

Skydrive, every day. The fact that I'm always on a Windows PC, then I can mesh into my home PC from work, and it integrates pretty well. The new online interface is rad too, so is the fact that you can download whole folders as a .zip.

25 GB's, granted, I'm not a huge fan of the max file size (50mb, I think?), but that is supposed to change soon.

Add in the fact that you can edit any office documents in the office online version, and it makes a pretty compelling offer.

- This. Along with Windows Live Mesh. I think the max upload file size was increased to 100 mb. One day Mesh and Skydrive will be integrated, too!

This! + A Windows Phone and Office that sync and save documents in Skydrive by default.

I don't see what's so great about Box.net. There's no SSL or encrypted storage (!!) for free users, nor is there any desktop apps. Dropbox isn't always great, but at least it has a reasonable featureset for free users.

I want to like some of the others (Skydrive, Ubuntu One), but honestly Dropbox makes the simplest work of syncing files between my home PC, work PC, MacBook, and Android phone.

Does Google Music count? I want to love that too, but the desktop client UI is totally fugly and the Android app *still* has problems buffering some tracks, repeating other tracks, and needs real improvement for searching/sorting music.

Live Mesh / SkyDrive would be great if they had a Linux and Android client. Unfortunately since those are my two primary OS's (and I'm not the only one), they aren't viable options, which is a shame because they (along with OneNote) are surprisingly quite good. Coming out of Redmond this is feat!

Windows Live Mesh has wonderful syncing for Windows users. I like it far better than Dropbox because Dropbox only syncs the "Dropbox" folder, whereas with Live Mesh you can choose any existing folder to sync.

There is absolutely no reason why there shouldn't be a simple, free solution to sending gigs of data to anyone. It should be as easy as email.

Filezilla makes FTP pretty easy... though not quite grandma-level. You still need to set up at least one account for the server, and install a client. And it's not a sync protocol, so it doesn't really help with multiple machines. But for a one-shot transfer of more GB than will fit on a USB memory stick, it does the job.

I like windows live mesh because it allows me to sync folders to skydrive up to 5 gigs, but also allows syncing of folders between two computers greater than 5 gigs if you only sync between them and not skydrive.

Without a doubt it's Skydrive/Windows Live Mesh. Skydrive because it offers 25GB of storage, not to mention SEAMLESS integration with my Windows Phone (such as uploading every photo automatically) that is only made even better with the recent release of the Skydrive App.

And Live Mesh is just awesome as it allows you to sync multiple folders not only with Skydrive, but also across a local LAN/WAN if they're too large to sync with Skydrive and you just want files to remain updated across different desktops/laptops across your local network.

I suppose a "con" would be it's only really available in its full functionality on Windows Platforms, however seeing as that's all I use, it is of no issue to me.

The thing I love about Dropbox is, since it is the most popular service at the moment, there's a plethora of other apps that offer Dropbox support. This is especially important on the iPad where otherwise it's a pain to get files off of the device.

I also like the poor-man's version simple control offered by Dropbox. Rolling back to previous versions is very nice.

Just wish they'd increase the amount of free storage offered to compete with some of the new guys...

I chose SpiderOak over DropBox. If I store important files somewhere, I'd like to trust the company that stores them.

Usual stuff: * 2GB free, more if you refer people, cross-platform, de-duplication and version control, syncing and backing up (two different operations) as well as sharing selected portions on the web.

Pros: * Security - they don't store your password, so they can't decrypt your files. I trust them, and is the reason I switched. (Read their "Engineering Matters" web page.) * Once configured, I haven't had to think about it much - it just works. * Terrific e-mail support. * Company supports the open-source community * Optional two-factor authentication (for paid users).

The one thing that scares me about Dropbox is moving my Documents folder into a "dropbox" folder (and then, moving it back out, beforehand, should I ever decide to "drop" [pun intended] Dropbox). I certainly would prefer a workaround *analogous* to e.g. Picasa which can be told to *monitor* (create its own index of) specified folders while not physically housing them.

Love Dropbox. Here's why: - super easy set up - syncs easily between my iPhone, iPad, laptop and desktop machines. - I share synced folders with friends and family members for all sorts of files too large for email - our small business of 6 people in 5 offices has a shared folder (within our main folder) with hundreds of files we all need whether on the road or in the office. One location, always current, all of us using the same data, and most of us syncing among several devices per person. - Even tho the starting (free) storage is only 2GB Dropbox awards you 1/4GB additional per referral (and gives your referral an additional free 1/4GB too). I currently enjoy 4.75 GB.

So I have one free Dropbox account that serves me on four devices for personal, family, and business and keeps each of those realms separate from the others.

The DIY route is the only option at the moment for me - do not think any of the popular but unproven cloud services have a good enough track record yet, especially with regards to privacy and security.

See Dropbox's issues in both those areas and that's the most commonly used one too.